Illinois Review

Employers Face Liability by Requiring COVID Shots, Liberty Counsel says

DC - Liberty Counsel, a legal group based in Orlando Florida, says a new guidance from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) states that employers could be held liable if they mandate employees to take COVID-19 injections as a condition of employment and then they experience adverse reactions. 

Under a “Frequently Asked Questions” section of OSHA’s website it states: “If you require your employees to be vaccinated as a condition of employment (i.e., for work-related reasons), then any adverse reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine is work-related. The adverse reaction is recordable if it is a new case under 29 CFR 1904.6 and meets one or more of the general recording criteria in 29 CFR 1904.7.” 

Recording requirements of serious work-related injuries and illness may leave employers with workers' compensation claims and impact their safety records. 

To avoid potential liability, employers should not require employees to receive any COVID shot. 

Some employers are now offering financial incentives, opportunities to win prizes, or paid time off to receive the COVID shots. Employees who chose not to receive the “voluntary” injection and therefore miss an opportunity to receive a prize could argue they suffered “repercussions” for their choice. In addition, the “professional advancement” of an unvaccinated employee who is not permitted to work at a particular job site may be affected. However, OSHA’s new guidance does not address these specific situations.

None of the COVID shots are approved or licensed by the FDA, Liberty Counsel's statement says. They come under the Emergency Use Authorization, which means they cannot be forced or required.

Congresswoman Mary Miller comments on current gas crisis

WASHINGTON - Congresswoman Mary Miller (IL-15) issued the following statement on the current gas crisis:

"The hack of the Colonial Pipeline is certainly creating a crisis in various parts of the country, but the real story here is the lack of foresight and vision when it comes to our national energy policy.

Biden’s lack of response to the Colonial Pipeline hacking is showing weakness and inviting future attacks.

Far-left extremists continue to oppose every effort to make our country truly energy-independent. They oppose any investment in oil and gas and the end result is a catastrophe when something happens to disrupt our supply of energy.

Beckman: If hate crimes deserve tougher sentence, shouldn't lying about them be the same?

Chicago media jumped on the Smollett story 

By Hank Beckman -

If people found guilty of crimes motivated by bias—hate crimes—deserve a harsher penalty than those same crimes where no evidence of bias exists, how should we deal with the miscreants among us who lie about hate crimes?

Hate crime laws vary by state, but the rationale behind enhanced penalties for crimes resulting from racial bias, religious bigotry, or malice toward other protected groups is succinctly explained by the Department of Justice on its web site.

“Hate crimes have a broader effect than most other kinds of crimes,” reads the relevant section. “Hate crime victims include not only the crime’s immediate target, but also others like them.”

Sounds reasonable.

Anatomy of a Crime Wave

Baltimore’s experiment with de-policing has been disastrous—and deadly. Stephen J. K. Walters writes:

A decade ago, Baltimoreans became lab rats in a fateful experiment: their elected officials decided to treat the city’s long-running crime problem with many fewer cops. In effect, Baltimore began to defund its police and engage in de-policing long before those terms gained popular currency.

This experiment has been an abject failure. Since 2011, nearly 3,000 Baltimoreans have been murdered—one of every 200 city residents over that period. The annual homicide rate has climbed from 31 per 100,000 residents to 56—ten times the national rate. And 93 percent of the homicide victims of known race over this period were black.

Myth vs. Fact: Don’t Be Fooled by Misinformation on Florida’s Election Reforms

Florida is the latest state to adopt voter integrity reform. Here are the facts. Jessica Anderson writes:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an election integrity bill into law Thursday morning to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. Unfortunately, the mainstream media is helping to circulate misinformation about the law, known as SB 90. Here is what you need to separate myth from fact.

Myth: Florida is trying to suppress mail-in voting.

Fact: Florida’s reforms simply make the process more uniform by strengthening ID requirements for absentee voting that already apply to in-person voting.

• These reforms would enhance voter ID requirements for mail-in ballot requests.
• Two-thirds (66%) of voters agree that applying voter ID requirements to absentee ballots, as SB 90 does, is a good way to safeguard ballot integrity.
• Research shows that voter ID doesn’t actually negatively impact turnout, despite Democrats’ false claims of voter suppression.

Napolitano: Unconstitutional Debt and Future Generations

Judge Andrew Napolitano - 

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. asked Congress to raise taxes and increase borrowing so his administration can spend $2.3 trillion — on top of the $1.9 trillion Congress authorized two months ago for so-called COVID relief — for thousands of projects he calls “infrastructure.” All this is in addition to the $2 trillion that the government borrows annually these days just to make ends meet.

These are serious numbers of dollars, the repayment of which will have seriously unpleasant consequences for future generations of Americans. Indeed, under Biden’s administration, the feds will borrow three times what they collect in taxes. This is not a new phenomenon, but it exacerbates the modern trend of spend now and pay later.

Under the Constitution, can the feds borrow as much as they want and can they spend it on anything they want? Here is the backstory.

More HERE

Your opinion matters: Who should challenge JB Pritzker in 2022?

BLOOMINGTON - The IL GOP faces yet another interesting political dilemma in 2022 - a year many politicos say could be a banner year for Republicans in reaction to the Biden-Harris Administration's unyielding push towards Leftist, Socialist - some say Communist - public policies. 

A viable Republican candidate could solidify the Illinois conservative base and push towards a competitive effort to oust Illinois Governor JB Pritzker in 2022. 

But there's a problem. The IL GOP is split - and the numbers for Republicans in Illinois set it into super minority status in both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly. The IL GOP leadership is definitely pulling towards the Liz Cheney side of the GOP while the conservative base is solidly looking towards Donald Trump-esque leadership. 

This past week, the Bloomington Pantagraph reports, IL GOP "leadership" - as the Pantagraph suggests - met to discuss the future of the IL GOP. Those declaring its future?  The likes of former Governor Jim Edgar, former IL GOP Chairman Pat Brady, longtime State Rep Dan Brady and state Senator Jason Barickman.

The group swiped at the downstate movement to oust Chicago, and once again pushed for a "moderate" tone for Illinois Republicans.

Stossel: Successful Without College

By John Stossel -

Americans took out $1.7 trillion in government loans for college tuition. Now, some don’t want to pay it back.

President Joe Biden says they shouldn’t have to. He wants to cancel at least $10,000 and maybe $50,000 of every student’s debt.

“They’re in real trouble,” says Biden, “having to make choices between paying their student loan and paying the rent.”

Poor students!

But wait: Shouldn’t they have given some thought to debt payments when they signed up for overpriced colleges? When they majored in subjects like photography or women’s studies, unlikely to lead to good jobs? When they took six years to graduate (a third don’t graduate even after six years).

More HERE

Facebook Trump Ban Endangers All of Us

Conservative groups condemned Facebook Oversight Board’s decision Wednesday to continue to block former President Donald Trump’s Facebook page and Instagram account as “un-American” and an “obscene” abuse of power, pointing out that if it treated liberals like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) the same way, people would be outraged.

As CNSNews.com reported, the Oversight Board said “it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension" of the former president’s account.

The board called on Facebook to review its decision “to determine and justify a proportionate response that is consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform.” The review must take place “within six months of the date of this decision.”

More HERE

Get vaccinated; get ready for Six Flags' thrilling roller coaster ride

GURNEE — Following this week's expansion of COVID vaccine eligibility to 12- to 15-year-olds, Governor JB Pritzker announced that Six Flags Great America – the Thrill Capital of the Midwest – will offer 50,000 free tickets to their parks in Gurnee and Rockford to newly vaccinated Illinois residents.

The value of the donated tickets is $4 million.

Banks and Biden Team Up for the Green New Deal

President Joe Biden, like many on the left, sells himself as a champion of the working class. But, time after time, Biden has proven that in order to promote his ideology, he will eagerly empower many of the same billionaires and massive financial institutions he claims to hate, often at the expense of hardworking American families.

A recent regulatory move governing financial institutions provides the latest, and perhaps best, example.

In January 2021, just weeks before President Trump left the White House, the Trump administration’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a new regulation – titled Fair Access to Financial Services – that would have made it illegal for large banks to discriminate against politically disfavored industries, such as fracking.

More HERE

How global leaders used COVID-19 to restrict religious liberty

COVID-19 has posed unique challenges to religious liberty across the United States, spurring politicians to impose public health measures that restricted in-person worship services. Globally, the situation has often been much worse, with many governments using the pandemic as an excuse for targeted persecution through a mix of misinformation and coercive action.

In the latest annual International Religious Freedom Report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) details these developments, along with other evolving threats to religious liberty around the world.

“In many cases these [public health] measures complied with international human rights standards protecting freedom of religion or belief, but in some cases they did not,” the report concludes. “USCIRF’s monitoring revealed that in some countries, already marginalized religious minorities faced official and/or societal stigmatization, harassment, and discrimination for allegedly causing or spreading the virus.”

From violating burial rites to blame-shifting toward religious minorities to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the pandemic has served as a precursor to all sorts of anti-religious mischief.

More HERE

The 'Great Reset' is about to become the law in Europe — and America could be next

The European Parliament voted in favor to apply environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards on businesses. Companies are being judged on leftist values, not business metrics. Is America next?

More HERE

Di Leo: Liz Cheney and The Big Lie

By John F Di Leo - 

Liz Cheney was raised as the daughter of a White House Chief of Staff, Congressman, Cabinet officer and Vice President. She has known the ways of Washington all her life.

As a Congressman, she has a decent voting record, and represents a terrific district of American patriots in the United States House of Representatives.

But she is a liar, and for that, she has no business in the Republican leadership.

Moore: Why Did Biden Census Bureau Add 2.5 Million More Residents to Blue-State Population Count?

By Stephen Moore - 

There is something very fishy about the new 2020 Census Bureau data determining which states picked up seats and which states lost seats.

Most all of the revisions to the original estimates have moved in one direction: Population gains were added to blue states, and population losses were subtracted from red states. The December revisions in population estimates under the Biden Census Bureau added some 2.5 million blue-state residents and subtracted more than 500,000 red-state residents. These population estimates determine how many electoral votes each state receives for presidential elections and the number of congressional seats in each state.

Is this a mere coincidence?

More HERE

Beckman: Fake Hate Crimes Penalties

By Hank Beckman - 

If people found guilty of crimes motivated by bias—hate crimes—deserve a harsher penalty than those same crimes where no evidence of bias exists, how should we deal with the miscreants among us who lie about hate crimes?

Hate crime laws vary by state, but the rationale behind enhanced penalties for crimes resulting from racial bias, religious bigotry, or malice toward other protected groups is succinctly explained by the Department of Justice on its web site.

“Hate crimes have a broader effect than most other kinds of crimes,” reads the relevant section. “Hate crime victims include not only the crime’s immediate target, but also others like them.”

Sounds reasonable.

Court Packing Threat Is Only the Latest Attempt to Undermine the Judiciary

The truth is that the Left knows our system of justice is an unparalleled masterpiece. But they don’t care. Pete Hutchison and Michael O'Neill write:

The American justice system is the envy of free people around the world. So why is the Progressive Left so hell-bent to undermine it? From the U. S. Supreme Court all the way down to local trial courts, leftist politicians, including the president and vice president of the United States and various members of the United States Congress, are constantly threatening and intimidating the Courts. What is going on?

The answer is simple: power.

Thorner/O’Neil: Public Schools - the new Havens of Woke-ness

By Nancy Thorner & Bonnie O'Neil - 

Mark Twain said, “If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

Most objective people know his words were not just witty, they were true. That is largely due to the many ways and means the news can now be delivered.   Newspapers compete with television programming, telephones, radio, and the internet. Thus, Twain’s concerns about misinformation spreading is even more of a concern in today's vast and varied communication network. Various sources continually compete with one another for our attention. To do so, they take liberties that border on deception.

Misinformation in schools

 

Misinformation is likewise a problem in our nation’s schools. Parents have less control over what is taught than they had decades ago.  Grandparents are especially concerned with the liberties schools take when addressing cultural issues. They have seen the changes and are therefore more aware of what they believe to be subtle, but dangerous indoctrination practices that parents might not perceive.  

 

Our schools, from Kindergarten through college, are noticeably different than they were even 15 years ago.  What began as subtle changes in school curriculum has exploded into blatant indoctrination tactics, where students are rarely taught our nation’s strengths.

China’s Emissions Exceeded Those Of All Other Developed Nations Combined: Report

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

A new report released late week found that communist China’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 were higher than the rest of the developed world combined.

The report was published by the Rhodium Group, a leading independent research provider that specializes in matters involving China, energy & climate, India, and economics.

More HERE

Chipotle Warns of Minimum Wage Increases

Progressive politicians and activists continue to clamor for a doubling of the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Critics often emphasize the millions of jobs that would be eliminated as a result. But a top executive from Chipotle is warning about another key consequence of a $15 minimum wage: customers will suffer.

Chipotle Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung explained on a recent company call that they already pay $11-13 an hour, but being forced to increase wage rates to $15 would ultimately hit customers in the wallet.

More HERE

Bill Maher on millennials and Gen-Z

Hospitals Dodge Price Transparency Rule

Hospitals across the U.S. are obligated by law to provide online readable files of all provided items and services, including costs for 300 “shoppable” services, but few have complied even with months to prepare.

Effective on January 1, the Hospital Price Transparency Rule requires publicly posted costs of 70 core services and 230 other services in plain language for the consideration of health care shoppers. All items and services must be displayed in a “consumer-friendly format.” According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) website, this is key for, “consumers to shop and compare prices across hospitals and estimate the cost of care before going to the hospital.”

Hospitals, however, are not fully complying with the price transparency requirements. At a March 11 presentation before the Americas Health Insurance Plans conference, Deloitte US, an audit, consulting, tax, and advisory stated hospitals are reluctant to release data until they see how their competitors are following suit.

More HERE

If Biden-Harris oppose court packing in El Salvador, why don’t they oppose it here?

Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning issued the following statement in response to Vice President Kamala Harris’ denunciation of Supreme Court packing in El Salvador:

“Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed their deep concerns about the state of ‘El Salvador’s democracy” on Sunday after President Nayib Bukele and his supporters in the legislature voted to fire all five of the Justices on the El Salvador Supreme Court in retaliation for their striking down some of Bukele’s policies as unconstitutional.

“Has there ever been a less self-aware administration in American history than the Biden-Harris group?

“Here is America, President Biden and Vice President Harris’ supporters in Congress are actively pushing a scheme to pack the U.S. Supreme Court out of fear that the Court might strike down some of Biden’s policies as unconstitutional. Exactly what the Bukele regime is doing in El Salvador.

Illinois pregnancy center set ablaze by arsonist, but knows ‘good will come’

In the early morning hours of May 3, the Women’s Care Center of Peoria, Illinois, part of a national chain of pregnancy care centers based out of South Bend, Indiana, was targeted by an arsonist who set fire to the locked building.

The center is located directly next door to what served for years as Peoria’s only surgical abortion facility until its closure in 2019. The Women’s Care Center provides free pregnancy testing and ultrasounds to over 500 women in the local community each year, with 13 women served per day, 1,000 ultrasounds performed annually, and 596 babies saved in the last year, according to the center’s website.

More HERE

Recent High School Grad. Here’s How I Fought Leftism in the Classroom.

By Anna Agresti - 

In her Advanced Placement government and politics class, a high school student named Anna was assigned to read a New York Times commentary that called the U.S. Constitution “imbecilic.” Many of her peers agreed with this conclusion based on the author’s argument that the Constitution is too difficult to amend.

So, Anna approached her teacher with an article that explained why the Times’ piece was historically inaccurate and logically ludicrous.

The next year, the teacher assigned that same Times article, but he also included Anna’s suggested counter-article. And instead of siding with the Times, that class concluded that the Constitution was not “imbecilic,” but, rather, wisely designed to protect people’s rights.

To borrow a phrase from Vice President Kamala Harris, “That little girl was me,” and by speaking up, I was able to positively impact subsequent groups of students. My experience with leftism in school was not an isolated incident and represents a much broader, serious problem within the U.S. public education system.

Generation Z is on track to be the most educated generation in history, and yet, nearly half hold favorable views of socialism and 70% say that the government “should be doing more to solve problems.”

Ronald Reagan famously said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction,” and if these trends continue, Gen Z will bring that tragedy to fruition.

More HERE

Prager: Affluence + Secularism = Boredom = Leftism

By Dennis Prager - 

Just as physicists look for equations to explain the natural world, I have always thought it useful to look for equations to explain human nature. For example, in my book on happiness, I offer this equation: U = I – R. Unhappiness = Image – Reality. The difference between the images we have for our life and the reality of our life is one way of measuring how much unhappiness we experience.

Here, I offer another theorem, this time to help explain leftism.

A + S = B = L

Affluence + Secularism = Boredom = Leftism

More HERE

Malkin: Anti-Censorship Legislation: Get It Right

By Michelle Malkin - 

Larry the Cable Guy made the phrase “Git-R-Done” his signature. A new breed of young Republicans and populists has its own message for their establishment elders: Get it right.

This new strategic alliance refuses to clap like trained GOP seals at any shiny vehicle masquerading as a free speech rescue because their very lives and livelihoods are on the line. This is not a drill.

More HERE

John Kerry, Biden’s ‘Climate Czar’, Admits U.S. Carbon Dioxide Emission Cuts are Pointless

John Kerry, Biden's special "Presidential Envoy for Climate" aka, Biden’s Climate Czar, provided a sobering moment during an interview where the curtain was pulled back and reality emerged.Kerry said:

“…getting to net zero [carbon dioxide emissions] is gonna be hard, really hard…that will depend on breakthrough technologies and breakthrough innovations. But even if we get to net zero, we still have to get carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.”

He’s saying essentially that cuts won’t matter, but technology and innovation will. He also seems to erroneously think “net zero” applies to getting ALL of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, which will end all plant life on Earth if it happened.

He also said essentially the same thing about emission cuts back in 2015.

See video and read more HERE.

Constant Media Lies Are Tearing America Apart

Most Americans realize the mainstream media are biased. According to recent polls, Americans’ trust in mass media has hit all-time lows.

So, why has the mainstream media abandoned all pretenses of political neutrality in favor of pushing lies?

Well, it could certainly have something to do with the fact that the vast majority of those in the mainstream media (as well as those in high places in academia, Hollywood, and corporate America) unashamedly hold leftist views.

This is not a hypothesis. This is a fact.

More HERE

Profits, Not Politics

Another tech company asks employees to keep politics out of the workplace. Allison Schrager writes:

Tech firms are returning to business models that focus on products and profits rather than politics and causes. Well, two are, anyway. The web software firm Basecamp is asking employees not to discuss politics or partake in activism on company time. Founder and CEO Jason Fried also announced that the privately owned firm would be dropping committees, obsequious peer-performance reviews, and “wellness” and other “paternalistic benefits” that try to nudge employees toward a particular lifestyle.

Basecamp is following in the footsteps of cryptocurrency firm Coinbase. Last September, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong told employees to stop bringing their politics and causes to work and announced that the company would not take political stances unrelated to its core mission. For employees who didn’t like the new policy, Armstrong offered a generous severance package (5 percent of workers took him up on the offer). The announcement, which occurred several months before Coinbase’s April IPO, bucked the idea that public companies must weigh the interests of multiple stakeholders (for example, politically minded employees or victims of social injustice).

Tech companies have traditionally been ahead of the curve. They were early to the idea that firms should wear their morality on their sleeves and indulge their socially conscious workers with safe spaces and lots of perks. Now, big firms like American Airlines, Nike, and Major League Baseball feel compelled to show their explicit support for progressive causes. Perhaps Coinbase and Basecamp are harbingers of a shift back to the shareholder model—where profits, not causes are the main objective.

Holding Some Students Back In The Name Of Equity Only Increases Injustice

We can fight wokeness by pushing excellence. Auguste Meyrat writes:

Last week, it came to light that the Virginia Department of Education is considering restructuring math in a way that could reduce opportunities for some students to take advanced math in the name of equity. White and Asian students take advanced math classes more than black and Latino students, and some see this as proof that it’s racist. Instead of seeking ways to raise the enrollment of underrepresented groups in advanced classes, some state leaders appear to believe it may be better to drop all groups down to the same level.

Unfortunately, the Virginia Department of Education isn’t an outlier. Under the guise of social justice, other districts have also taken aim at advanced programs, notably New York City, Seattle, and San Francisco. As Rachel Blustain explains in NBC news, these programs were accused of “creating a caste system by assigning students to remedial, average or advanced classes before they’d had a chance to develop their academic potential.” Yet advanced and Gifted and Talented programs are unequal by design, and they might deny learning opportunities for students enrolled in the lower-level classes.

Thorner, Part 2: Scientific Facts Expose Biden’s Radical Climate Policies

By Nancy Thorner - 

The Heartland Institute, as a prelude and counter to the Biden/Harris administration's celebration of Earth Day on Thursday, April 22, 2021, presented its own Zoom event on Tuesday, April 20, 2021, titled, " The Real Crisis:  Biden and the Left's Radical Climate Policies." 

Part 1 - Scientific Facts Expose Biden’s Radical Climate Policies was posted on Wednesday, May 05, 2021 at Illinois Review.  Featured were panel members Steve Milloy, Founder and Publisher of Junk Science, and James Taylor, President of The Heartland Institute.

Part 2 features Gregory Wrightstone, Executive Director, CO2 Coalition, and Myron Ebell, CEI's Center for Energy and Environment

Gregory Wrightstone. Wrightstone's Inconvenient Facts, published in 2017, is still a best seller on Amazon.

5 White Farmers Sue Over Loan Forgiveness Only for Blacks, Other Minorities

Photo: Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty

Christopher Baird owns a dairy farm near Ferryville in southwest Wisconsin, not far from the Mississippi River. He milks about 50 cows and farms approximately 80 acres of pasture.

Like a lot of farmers, Baird has direct loans through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency. 

But the dairy farmer isn’t entitled to a new FSA loan-forgiveness program provided as part of COVID-19 relief in the $2 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, legislation touted Wednesday night by President Joe Biden in his address to Congress. 

Baird is white. He joined four other white farmers last week in suing federal officials over being left out.

More HERE

The Courage of Our Convictions

There are ways Americans can fight back against the rise of critical race theory. Christopher F. Rufo writes:

Critical race theory is fast becoming America’s new institutional orthodoxy. Yet most Americans have never heard of it—and of those who have, many don’t understand it. This must change. We need to know what it is so we can know how to fight it.

To explain critical race theory, it helps to begin with a brief history of Marxism. Originally, the Marxist Left built its political program on the theory of class conflict. Karl Marx believed that the primary characteristic of industrial societies was the imbalance of power between capitalists and workers. The solution to that imbalance, according to Marx, was revolution: the workers would eventually gain consciousness of their plight, seize the means of production, overthrow the capitalist class, and usher in a new socialist society.

National Catholic Register Blasts Biden For His First ‘100 Days Of Disappointments’

The publisher of the National Catholic Register excoriated President Joe Biden on Friday for standing in opposition to the Catholic Church by supporting abortion and the LGBT agenda.

“As Joe Biden passes his 100th-day mark in office today, the early returns show how, for faithful Catholics, this period couldn’t be more disappointing,” began Michael Warsaw. “There are also signs that the next 100 days and beyond will be even more disturbing.”

More HERE

Studies Purporting to Show Safety of Telehealth Abortions Are Unpersuasive

(Photo: Andrey Popov/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Pro-life advocates suffered a policy setback last week when the Food and Drug Administration lifted existing restrictions on telemedicine abortions for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

This past year, groups supporting legal abortion litigated against Trump administration FDA rules, which required that chemical abortions occur under medical supervision.

Supporters of legal abortion obtained a favorable ruling from a U.S. district court judge in July. However, in January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration’s protective rules were constitutional and could remain in place.  

However, the Biden administration’s new FDA rules will make it possible for women to obtain chemical abortion drugs by mail and undergo chemical abortions without any in-person medical supervision.

More HERE

Rossi: How Democrats Are Killing the “American Dream”

By Randy Rossi - 

The Wall Street Journal just published a great Op Ed from Daniel Henninger titled “Killing the American Dream” which explains how Democrats are doing exactly that which is a tragedy. America became the most prosperous and powerful nation in the world because of a belief that any American can live the American Dream no matter who they are or where they are from if they work hard and live good moral lives. That doesn’t mean it is easy, but it is achievable. As the son of a legal Italian immigrant who was raised in a converted two car garage when I was a young kid, I lived that American Dream and retired as a group president of two manufacturing companies. Even though I was called a “Wop”, “Dago”, and “Papist” at different points in my life, I was taught that if I worked hard and lived a good life anything was possible. And it was true. The key to success was hard work ethics and self-dependence and it was a common theme across America as I was growing up. And we were taught that America was the greatest country on earth that brought freedom to over a billion people in WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. We were raised as proud Americans who believed that anything was possible.

Bailey releases Pritzker attack ad

XENIA - State Senator Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) released an ad Wednesday criticizing Governor JB Pritzker as Bailey pursues his bid to oust the Democrat incumbent in 2022.

In the new ad, Bailey asserts Pritzker hypocritically attacked former Governor Bruce Rauner for ignoring veterans in long-term, state-run care when Pritzker's administration similarly allowed 36 veterans to die of COVID last fall.

Peoria area pregnancy support center ruined by fire set intentionally, officials say

 

PEORIA - The Women’s Care Center of Peoria, a local pro-life pregnancy support center, lost everything in the early hours of Monday morning after a severe fire went through their facility and did an estimated $250,000 in damage. The fire has been ruled intentional.

 

According to reports, firefighters were called to 7319 N. University St. at about 2:40 Monday and found heavy fire coming from the windows in the front of the building. The blaze destroyed one large room, and the entire building sustained extensive heat and smoke damage.

One Congress member from Illinois opposes gun control advocate David Chipman's ATF appointment

WASHINGTON - Congresswoman Mary Miller (IL-15) signed a letter urging the Senate to oppose President Biden’s nomination of David Chipman in leading the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. She joined 68 Republicans of the Republican Study Committee in signing this letter.

No other members of Congress from Illinois signed onto the letter.

“As a strong defender of our Second Amendment, I signed onto a letter urging the Senate to oppose this nomination. David Chipman is an unacceptable choice to lead the ATF. If confirmed, David Chipman would jeopardize the constitutional right of every legal firearm owner and attempt to change the landscape of firearm ownership for future generations. Chipman has not made it a secret that he is an enemy of our Second Amendment. Our Constitution must be upheld with every appointment, and I hope that the Senate will take our petitions into consideration.”

Abortion advocate Tammy Duckworth sells Mother's Day swag

WASHINGTON DC - Illinois' junior US Senator Tammy Duckworth is offering an array of Mother's Day gifts for "the moms in your life" - for prices ranging from $10 for a "Working Moms are Bada@@" to $50 for a plush duck sporting a "Tammy Strong" logo. 

The irony can't be overlooked, however, that Senator Duckworth has done everything possible to promote ending motherhood before a new life is able to live outside her mother's womb - and wants even more radical anti-life policies in place in America and abroad. The Democrat is running for a second term in Illinois next year.

Indeed, Senator Duckworth, as her book title says, "Every Day is a Gift." Everyone of us is thankful for our days - and we should regret all the days the unborn in America have missed because of radical pro-abortion policies. 

We Can Repeal, Not Just Reform, Section 230

Repeal of Section 230’s 1996 lawless Wild West Internet policy is inevitable because it is based on an immoral premise and has inflicted severe damage to America’s constitutional liberties, national security and economic prosperity.

Repeal vs. Reform

Repeal of Section 230 would serve America and Americans much better than reforms that perpetuate lawless U.S. Internet policy and guarantee Big Tech remains unaccountable and Americans remain unprotected online.

Repeal would affect a major national policy change, while reform incrementalism would preserve the online status quo.

Repeal would be a comprehensive and constitutional solution, while content moderation reforms are piecemeal solutions that carry constitutional risks.

Repeal would empower 2022 and 2024 voters with a national policy conversation that asks candidates if and how they are going to ensure Big Tech is accountable and Americans are protected online?

Most importantly, repeal of Section 230 and its lawless U.S. Internet policy would legally restore the Constitution, Bill of Rights, rule-of-law, right and wrong, due process, redress and a duty of care online — without new regulation.

More HERE

Florida Close to Cracking Down on Big Tech

Florida is close to finalizing a bill to protect the free speech rights of people on social media. The bill is supported by The Heartland Institute, which said, "we are entering into a potentially dangerous time for political free speech." It is opposed by Facebook, Amazon, NetChoice and the Internet Association.

More HERE

Americans Do Not Want the Woke Racism Our Schools Are Peddling

Americans don't want wokeness in the classroom. Samuel J. Abrams writes:

In the past few weeks, it has become apparent that the extreme progressive impulses infecting higher education in the United States have moved from campus quads and dormitories into our nation’s middle and high schools and even into our kindergartens. In New York City alone, the uptown Dalton School has seen an uprising and departure of numerous high-level staff over questions of curriculum and social justice. Downtown, a Grace Church School teacher published an open letter explaining that the school’s new “anti-racist” ideology induces shame in white students for being oppressors; he has witnessed the harmful impact that these ideas have had on children including silencing inquiry such that “children are afraid to challenge the repressive ideology that rules our school.”

Victory! A Sanctuary Ordinance Falls

Last week, in a major victory against sanctuary policies, Indiana’s Lake Superior Court struck down key parts of an ordinance that the City of East Chicago, Indiana, had enacted to protect illegal aliens, even ones with criminal records, from federal immigration law enforcement. The decision is a major victory for the plaintiffs, who are represented by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) and The Bopp Law Firm. Previously, the same attorneys represented plaintiffs who successfully challenged a similar ordinance in Gary, Indiana.

In the East Chicago case, lawyers at IRLI and Bopp argued, and the court yesterday found, that the ordinance violates several Indiana statutes prohibiting governmental bodies in the state from refusing to cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement. The statutes, which IRLI had helped draft, require local jurisdictions to cooperate with such enforcement to the full extent contemplated in federal law.

Sharing the Covid Vaccine ‘Formula’ with Foreign Countries Poses National Security Risk

President Joe Biden cannot say he is tough on China and then transfer advanced pharmaceutical patents to them.

U.S.-based corporations have developed the most effective vaccines against the Covid virus and are generously distributing them to other countries. But sharing the vaccine “formula” with other countries would pose a national security risk. Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in reaction to demands from other nations to access the intellectual property of America’s advanced biotech labs.

“Because the United States is the most generous country in the world, we are sharing our Covid vaccines with less developed countries. But sharing the intellectual property that underlies those vaccines poses a national security risk.

“Many countries are demanding the U.S. waive the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement that was made at the World Trade Organization in 1995 on pandemic-related products in order to get their hands on our advanced biotech knowledge that was critical to develop the vaccine in the first place.

“This national security concern is why the Trump administration explicitly rejected waiving TRIPS last year, and the Biden administration should do the same, as waiving would give sensitive national security-developed biotech to the rest of the world including China, which is in a race to build its own biotech arsenal.

“President Joe Biden cannot say he is tough on China and then transfer advanced pharmaceutical patents to them and other competitors  to exploit and bury U.S. manufacturers. If Congress wants more vaccines distributed globally, it can choose to appropriate more money to do that, but the American people have every right to expect that we will get our doses first.

More HERE

Illinois Conservatives to welcome Nigel Farage May 11

TUESDAY, MAY 11, 2021 AT 6 PM CDT – 9 PM CDT

America’s Comeback Tour: An Evening with Nigel Farage

Diplomat West Banquet Halls

 

For more information go HERE: 

Rand Paul to visit Chicago

CHICAGO - US Senator Rand Paul will be in the Chicago area June 4th to raise funds for his 2022 re-election bid.

The evening will be hosted by the Honorable Eloise Gerson, the 2nd Ward Republican Committeeperson, and Lori Yokoyama, the 4th Ward Republican Committeeperson for the City of Chicago.

Paul has become a favorite of both libertarians and conservatives - known for his feisty challenges of Dr. Anthony Fauci's COVID policies and the Democrats' unleashed spending efforts.

Thorner: Part 1 - Scientific Facts Expose Biden’s Radical Climate Policies

 
Image from The Atlantic

By Nancy Thorner -

The Heartland Institute, as a prelude and counter to the Biden/Harris administration's celebration of Earth Day on Thursday, April 22, 2021, presented its own Zoom event on Tuesday, April 20, 2021, titled, "The Real Crisis:  Biden and the Left's Radical Climate Policies." 

Heartland's event featured a panel of the following notable climate science experts:

• Steve Milloy, Founder and Publisher of Junk Science
• James Taylor, President of The Heartland Institute
• Gregory Wrightstone, Executive Director, CO2 Coalition
• Myron Bell, CEI's Center for Energy and Environment.

The panel focused on several different aspects of the Biden plan and what's going on with the climate summit, what's going on with the American Jobs Plan, the so-called infrastructure package, the Paris Treaty commitments, and some of the science that the Biden administration and its supporters don't pay attention to.

 

Since the topic is so important, with its ramification closely tied to this nation's economic future and its survival as a world leader if fully enacted, Thorner decided her article needed to be presented in two parts to do justice to each of the four panelists' remarks.

Where’s Weyermuller? At Illinois Right to Life Banquet with Sarah Huckabee Sanders

By Mark Weyermuller -

“Why didn’t somebody  do something?”  These are words said by a nine year old girl at the Holocaust Museum in Israel some 30 years ago. That little girl was Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Her dad, the former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, had taken her to the museum.  

She was the keynote speaker last Friday night at the Illinois Right to Life dinner in Lombard, Illinois. The event was called “The Leaders For Life Banquet.”